Yakov Dzhugashvili, the oldest child of Josef Stalin, could never be said to have enjoyed an easy life. After his mother died when he was less than one year old, his father dumped him off to be reared by her family while he went off to be Stalin, doing Stalinesque things as only he couldContinueContinue reading “Stalin’s Eldest Son: Captured, Interrogated, Killed”
Tag Archives: KGB
Soviet Spies Reveal Dangerous Condition of Chernobyl Reactors Two Years Before the Catastrophe
On 1 March 1984, slightly more than two years before the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion that rocked the globe, Soviet intelligence agents provided information to the Ukrainian KGB regarding the alarming condition of the power plant – in particular, load-bearing structures (girders and concrete slabs) at three different locations of reactor No.ContinueContinue reading “Soviet Spies Reveal Dangerous Condition of Chernobyl Reactors Two Years Before the Catastrophe”
Soviet Censors Send Top Secret 1946 Report to Communist Officials for Action Regarding Mail from Family Members of Ukrainian Servicemen
Postal censorship was never unique to the Soviet Union. Often most associated with wartime correspondence between deployed servicemen and their families back home, in many countries censorship was accepted as a small price to pay to keep operationally sensitive information out of enemy hands. Also generally accepted is the understanding that, once peace has beenContinueContinue reading “Soviet Censors Send Top Secret 1946 Report to Communist Officials for Action Regarding Mail from Family Members of Ukrainian Servicemen”
Soviets Learn of 1944 Peace Proposal to US from Prominent German Officers – Lets Germany Continue Fighting the USSR
On 14 June 1944, an unidentified Soviet human intelligence agent in Washington intercepted information that Allen Dulles, at the time the Swiss Director of the Office of Strategic Services, had been approached by German General Walther von Brauchitsch in Switzerland to meet at the US Embassy in Bern to discuss a peace proposal. The German,ContinueContinue reading “Soviets Learn of 1944 Peace Proposal to US from Prominent German Officers – Lets Germany Continue Fighting the USSR”
1971 KGB Memo Alerts CPSU to Planned Western Anti-Soviet Campaign
On 13 January, 1971, KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov issued a memorandum to the Central Committee of the CPSU on the intensification of the activities of Moscow correspondents of foreign media to collect information from “antisocial elements” (Andrei Sakharov, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in particular) during preparations for the 24th Congress of the CPSU. TheContinueContinue reading “1971 KGB Memo Alerts CPSU to Planned Western Anti-Soviet Campaign”
Chernobyl: KGB Inexplicably Seeks to Prevent Departure of Foreign Students, Downplays Radiation Threat, 30 April 1986
The following is a translated special report from the head of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR for Kyiv and Kyiv region L. Bykhov to the first secretary of the Kyiv City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Yu. Yelchenko regarding the growing panic among visiting British students in connection with the Chernobyl accident.ContinueContinue reading “Chernobyl: KGB Inexplicably Seeks to Prevent Departure of Foreign Students, Downplays Radiation Threat, 30 April 1986”
Casting Blame for the Chernobyl Disaster: Foreign Students in Ukraine Chime In
On 30 April 1986, less than four full days after the explosion that rocked the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, an official with the 5th Directorate of the Ukrainian KGB penned a Secret report based on human intelligence sources regarding wild rumors on the source of the catastrophe that had been already been spreading throughout theContinueContinue reading “Casting Blame for the Chernobyl Disaster: Foreign Students in Ukraine Chime In”
Beria’s Son Petitions CPSU and KGB Leadership for Return of Confiscated Goods, Academic Title, and State Decorations
By 1965, Sergo Beria had lived with his KGB-assigned new last name ‘Gegechkori’ (his mother’s maiden name) for a decade. He’d also found himself, in his words, unaware that he had been stripped of his academic credentials, and that his discharge from the Soviet Army had been accompanied with a demotion down to the lowestContinueContinue reading “Beria’s Son Petitions CPSU and KGB Leadership for Return of Confiscated Goods, Academic Title, and State Decorations”
1971 Ukrainian KGB Report Documents Grisly Discovery of Ukrainian Mass Burial Site in Bykvinya
The following is a declassified Secret report filed by Vitaliy Fedorchuk, at the time the Chairman of the Ukrainian Committee for State Security, regarding the discovery of the now infamous mass grave site in Bykvinya, near Kyiv. Following up on the news that a number of juveniles had unearthed gold dental work and skeletal humanContinueContinue reading “1971 Ukrainian KGB Report Documents Grisly Discovery of Ukrainian Mass Burial Site in Bykvinya”
Declassified KGB Reports on Eve of Margaret Thatcher 1990 Visit to the USSR
In 1990, the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. Just a year and some change from the failed coup attempt, and the sounds of Eastern Europe’s ideological fetters and chains (and the very real remains of the Berlin Wall) falling to the ground as a hint of things to come, 1990 was stillContinueContinue reading “Declassified KGB Reports on Eve of Margaret Thatcher 1990 Visit to the USSR”
Translating History 